Beer Anorak

Beer Without The Baggage

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Our scoring system

We prefer pointless* wine. Scores or points are problematic. How can you reduce the complex, multisensory experience of drinking a beer to a numerical score? And how reproducible are scores of the same beer on different occasions given the numerous variables that affect flavour on any given occasion?

Despite these issues, we still give the beers we review a score. Why? Simply because it’s useful to let you, the reader, know exactly how much we liked the beer. Tasting notes aren’t always very good at doing this.

If we give a beer a high score, it’s because we really like it, and – if your palate is in any way correlated with ours – then you might too.

Roughly speaking, a well made, fairly average beer that, in the right context will give some pleasure, will get about 6/10.

A beer with a bit more interest might score 7/10.

By the time we get to 8/10 the beer is really, really good.

9/10, and we are getting very excited indeed. Oh yes.

Ye get the idea?

*pointless wine is the opposite to a ‘point’ wine: a wine that world renowned international wine critics have given high scores to, making them more of an over-priced luxury item, than a drink.